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Big 10 Commish Won’t Fire Coaches

STATE COLLEGE, PA - JANUARY 22: A man reaches out to touch the statue of former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno outside of Beaver Stadium on January 22, 2012 in State College, Pennsylvania. Community members paid their respects after hearing of Paterno's death due to complications from lung cancer. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images)Getty/Patrick Smith

PARK RIDGE, Ill. (AP) – The Big Ten says it won’t give its commissioner the power to fire coaches.

In a statement released Friday, the conference says “giving emergency powers to the commissioner to fire personnel is not under consideration” by its 12 school presidents and chancellors.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reported this week that the conference was considering giving its commissioner the power to punish schools with financial sanctions, suspensions and the ability to fire coaches in the wake of the Penn State scandal. The Chronicle obtained an 18-page plan titled “Standards and Procedures for Safeguarding Institutional Control of Intercollegiate Athletics”
that proposed giving the commissioner unilateral authority to “take any and all actions” in the best interest of the Big Ten.

The conference says that was “an early draft put together by the Big Ten staff in order to surface all of the options available.”